


Gut Feeling

by cadkitten



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Depression, Hope, Hopeful Ending, JayTim Week, Loss, M/M, POV First Person, Redemption, Smoking, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 18:00:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7694020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the flare of a brightly lit path, the elegantly laid out carpet leading us toward the future. This is our redemption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gut Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> For JayTimWeek over on tumblr. Day 6: Redemption  
> Beta Readers: sakura_ame  
> Song[s]: "Intro" by The XX

There's so much pain in this family, more than there should legitimately be in any group. When I think about it, maybe that's what makes us who we are. Maybe it's that pain that lets us put our lives on the line every single night for people who couldn't give two shits about it. 

I can't help but think that maybe it's that part of us that has kept us who we are. Or that maybe it's the single part that keeps me who I am right now, in the face of what has become something so close to unbearable. Even now, sitting out here on the highest building in all of Gotham, I'm left to wonder... is the result worth the pain and loss it has taken to get us there?

Bruce is in the wind, gone without anyone more than glancing at the idea that it could be more than it appears. Well... anyone _else_. I've been twisting around every little idea I can lay my hands on, but it hasn't amounted to a hell of a lot just yet. More questions than explanations and more dead ends than all the times we've tried to track down a certain pasty-faced criminal's past. But I know I'm onto something and I'm clinging to my own ideals and my own ideas. No way I'm going to let someone else rip that out from under me; not when I need it so much.

With Dick taking up the mantle and Damian as his Robin, it's been a difficult road these past few weeks. There's no one left to talk to about how hard this has all been. I know Jason's around and that he'd give me his ear anytime I need it, but the truth is I feel like shit every time I even debate talking to him about my problems. He's been through so much; been through a hell that we can only pretend to imagine. He doesn't need my petty little problems when he's probably still reeling from the curve ball life - and death - threw him. 

But I also understand I'm almost at that edge; the one that I nearly went flying over a year or so ago. The one where nothing makes sense anymore and everything's tinged a horrible shade of listless. My head feels like there's been a fog rolling in for weeks and I can sense the terrible things to come right along the edges of my consciousness; not quite here enough to grasp, but close enough that I can feel their fear. 

Some nights have been worse than others, leaving me sweating in my bed, unable to sleep for the pounding of my heart. At times it feels like I couldn't draw another breath even if my life depended on it, the very act of pulling air into my lungs too cumbersome a task, too high a precipice. And then there are the instants where my mind goes in a million directions, all of them agonizing down to their very core, leaving me nauseous and horridly anxious, tucked away into a nightmare of my own pain, grasping at anything for a way out of the world I've created. Maybe that makes it worse, knowing I'm the one who has created everything I step into in those moments. It's _my_ creation and _my_ reflection and when I have to claw my way out, it's _my_ world I'm tearing apart to do it. 

What I wouldn't give to just _be_. The truth is I used to manage that with Dick. When he'd let me just sit on the line with him, regardless of if I could talk to him or not. Regardless of anything else that was happening.

"Tim?" the quiet voice behind me almost takes my breath away, _almost_ scares me. But I'd know it anywhere. 

Turning, I glance up at him, finding he's already removed his helmet, leaving it dangling from his fingertips. "Jay." Even my voice betrays me, the way it wavers on even the smallest of words, leaving me feeling cracked and vulnerable under his gaze. There's a second I can see the deliberation in his eyes and then he's kneeling beside me, worry written across his face. "Your com's been off all night."

Closing my eyes, I lean back for a moment, feeling the air behind me, and then his hand grasping at the front of my suit, tugging me in. "Tim... let's go, okay?" There's no malice in his words, no fear to them either. It's as if there's a fact within them that only he knows. As if he can see inside of me. As if he knows my pain as intimately as I do. Perhaps there's more truth to that than I know. For a guy not that much older than me, he's been through a hell of a lot; death only a small fraction of it. 

Pushing up from the wall, I move with him, letting him sling his arm around me and guide me away from here. I wouldn't have done anything tonight; it wasn't that bad... at least not yet. Maybe a week from now. Or next month. Or next year. But not tonight. 

Five floors later and I wonder how I ever thought this would be the building I'd choose; the very one he's chosen his newest apartment in. Stepping in through the door, listening to him lock it up behind us, it hits me like a ton of bricks. He bought this place because of me; because of where I chose to find myself time and again. My legs barely draw me to the couch, leaving me collapsing onto the suede surface with barely an ounce of strength left to temper my fall.

He's there in record time, one leg drawn up on the sofa beside me, one hand cradling my own. There aren't any words, as if he already knows I'm too far gone to form any coherent ones in return. Not tonight. 

It feels like the span of a small eternity before he sheds pieces of his costume, helping me with some of my own, my fingers feeling as though they aren't my own when I try to unfasten my belts, when I try to remove my cape. When he's done, I'm left in the most comfortable parts of my suit, left alone only long enough for him to bring me back a warm mug of coffee from the kitchen. He's never been one for coffee and it tells me he's bought the little cartridges for his tea maker just for me - for my very presence in his home. 

The cup is warm between my hands and it steadies more than just my fingertips. I can feel the pieces of my mind trying to knit back together; doing their damn best to repair the fucked up little quilt of my thoughts.

He settles on the couch, one leg propped up along the back of it and his back resting against the high arm of it, the other dangling off the seat. It's an invitation. Anyone with half a brain could see it for what it is and it's without reserve or hesitation that I take the offering, settling myself between his legs, my back to his chest, my head resting against his shoulder. My eyelids flutter shut and for a second, the clamor and the chaos stops. I'm frozen within time, hanging here as if nothing could ever make me feel the way I have been for _years_. 

Just like that, it's gone. The moment's over and I'm plunged back into reality once again; a cruel place that hurts worse than a gunshot wound. My fingers play over the edge of the cup, one digit slowly circling the rim as I contemplate where to even start with him. How much does he know? How much does he _care_ to know? I have to be careful not to let it all run away with me again. 

Leaning my head up, I take a small sip of the coffee, finding just the barest hints of vanilla bean within it. Just the way I like it. "I don't know where to start."

"Everyone always says start at the beginning." He huffs out a rough little sound that I assume must have once been a laugh, before it worked its way up through him and out into the air, soiled and torn, just like us. "Fuck the beginning. Start at the damn end."

I contemplate the words, turning them over and over in my head as my fingers work over the rim of the cup, tracing the same path time and again. There's the flick of a lighter and his chest expands as he inhales, lighting his cigarette. Smoke floats through the air around us and I find myself just watching it, feeling around inside my own mind for whatever instant I can find to explain why I was up there tonight. "No one will listen and I know I'm right."

He's silent as he takes another drag of his cigarette, quiet as he exhales the smoke in a steady stream up into the air above us. And then, "Awful big presumptions... assuming no one is listening when you haven't even come to some of us."

I can't help but admit that he's right. Not everyone has turned me out for my theories because not everyone has heard them. My head rests back against his shoulder. "He's alive, Jay. I know it somewhere deep inside of me, somewhere I can't ignore." I reach up and he slides the cigarette between my fingers, reaching to take my cup away with the other hand. I can hear him taking a sip as I pull in a shallow lungful from his cigarette and breathe it back out, just looking for the subtle buzz of the pairing of nicotine and caffeine. "You know Bruce once told me never to ignore that pull. The one your gut does when you just _know_ something, no matter how stupid or farfetched it may seem."

"You mean the one I listened to tonight." He's taking the cigarette away, replacing it with my coffee mug, and then his breath is pleasant against my cheek as he whispers, "Or the one that tells me that while you've been avoiding talking to me all this time... it's me that you need the most."

He's right... he's always been right. I know I can't do it right now, the twist and turn of my gut telling me if I do, I'll dissolve; that the fragile hold I've had over myself tonight will shatter and I'll start to fall. I bring the mug to my lips and he seems to know that it's his answer, leaning back and quietly smoking his cigarette. 

Warmth flares inside of me that I know has nothing to do with the temperature of the liquid flowing down my throat. It's inherent, the way that I understand just where this puts us. It's the flare of a brightly lit path, the elegantly laid out carpet leading us toward the future. This is our redemption.


End file.
